It's not normal
by amy-and-addie
Summary: "Derek died. He died. I don't want to feel it." Amelia through the months after Derek dies.


**Hey y'all! So this is my take on what Amelia's life was after Derek died. Most dialogue is from the show.**

 **Keep in mind I won't be a doctor for another 15 years ish so any medicine in this story may be inaccurate.**

 **For Amelia's backstory i suggest watching Private Practice 5x08/5x09 and 5x22. This will clarify some stuff in here.**

 **Anencephaleptic babies squeak. That's important.**

 **Disclaimer: Don't own anything, all rights go to Shonda**

* * *

You were having a good day. Oddly enough, that's the first thing that popped into your head as Owen walked into the scrub room and asked Edwards and Callie if you "could have the room please." You were having a good day and you didn't want to deal with Owen's questions and his confusion, didn't want to discuss what the two of you were or could've been. You'd called it off for a reason and the last thing you wanted was Owen looking at you with liquid eyes, analyzing and searching for the person that lay underneath the sarcastic, brilliant neurosurgeon you'd become in the eyes of your colleagues. You _were_ that surgeon today, and you wanted to hold onto that a bit longer, not talk to Owen about how you felt.

Edwards and Callie leave the room, walking back into the OR and you don't turn around, don't stop scrubbing out, your annoyance palpable as you say "Did you need something?"

"Maybe we should have this conversation in my office."

Someone always needed to talk. You feel yourself getting pissed, your mind shifting through all your previous encounters with Owen, and your chest aches as it gets a little harder to breathe, knowing he's still looking at you. Not letting any of this show, you continue scrubbing out replying "Look, I don't have time for-"

He pushes his way into the scrub room, and you know something's changed. There's a fear you haven't seen from him yet, a pity mixed with grief, and maybe that's what finally makes you pay attention. Blue eyes stare into yours trying desperately to convey a message, face remaining grim, mouth in a thin straight line as he stands in front of you shoulders slumped and jaw clenched.

You freeze, your whole body turning rigid as you feel your heart sink in your chest because you recognize the look that Owen's giving you. It's a look you've seen a thousand times before. You'd seen it on Cooper when Addison had run out of the room after your first ultrasound in tears. The policeman had looked at you the same way as he took your statement about Michelle. Your mind drifts back further and further to one of your first memories, recognizing the look the kind old nurse used as she answered your question of where your father was. You'd seen that look too many times, hell, you'd given that look too many times to unsuspecting families of patients that weren't supposed to end up the way they had. It was ingrained into your brain, the majority of your worse memories accompanying it. You _hate_ that look, and right now, you hate Owen for looking at you like that because you knew exactly what it meant and no matter how hard you wish, their isn't anything that's going to change that.

Swallowing hard, you decided to just go for it, get it out of the way, anything to stop Owen's gaze from burning a hole straight through the middle of whatever life you had managed to build yourself after fleeing LA.

"Who died?"

"Amelia." He looks desperate, and you're not sure he realizes that his face tells you everything you need to know. And maybe he doesn't, so you continue.

"I know the face," you say, one hand on the sink while you brace the other on your hip, trying to give off an air of confidence as you feel your mind beginning to spin, knowing that whatever the answer is, you won't like it. You are _mad_ \- you're furious at Owen and that stupid look and against your better judgment you start ranting, seeing red.

"I know the face," you continue, shrugging. "Everyone thinks they are the first person in the world to ever look at a human being like that but...it's always the same face. Who is dead?"

You start taking another breath but Owen beats you to it, blurting the answer.

"Derek. It's Derek."

And you can't do anything but simply look at him, frozen in place as you try to stop your thoughts, try to process his words, the last words you were prepared to hear. You feel your chest tighten and all of a sudden you can't feel the sink, can't smell the leftover scent of surgery, can't feel anything but black. It's just you and Owen and the word that hangs between you, holding the power to tear you apart piece by piece until everything you've ever worked for disappears.

You're sure Owen continues, but you can't hear him as your mind takes you back and suddenly you aren't in the scrub room of OR two anymore.

 _You can't breathe. You know that much as you stand behind your brother, tears running down your face. Your shoes are red, and your feet are wet and everything feels wrong. Everything is red; Derek's clothes and his hands as he presses them over your dad's chest and tries to stop the blood from flowing onto to floor turning everything red red red._

 _He's yelling at you to call 911 but you can't move. You grab your chest with your hand, trying desperately to stop the pain that was steadily building._

 _You want to ask him what's wrong with Daddy; you need to tell him you can't breathe and that you don't want to call 911, you want your mom and your bed and you want Daddy to get up so you can go home and he can read you a story like he always does at night. You try to tell Derek all of this but what actually comes out is some wheezing and he yells at you again. This time you force your legs to move and you run to the back and grab the phone and tell the lady on the other side that Daddy needs help and to come quick._

 _You remember your mom picking you up, remember Kathy grabbing Derek's hand and taking him to the car where your sisters are. You think your mom passes you off cause next thing you know, Lizzie is carrying you through the hospital doors and a nice lady that smells like the chocolate your dad gave you for your birthday starts talking to you, asking what you remember._

 _You start telling her about the picture that you were drawing and the pennies you save. You tell her how there was a really loud sound but you couldn't move, you couldn't get to Daddy and your chest hurts again, pain tightening around your heart and refusing to let go. The lady asks if you remember the men that shot your dad and you stare at her, not understanding what she means and you just say that your Daddy is hurt cause that you do know. He's really hurt and all of a sudden you need to see him._

 _You lunge against Lizzie's arms and run down the hall as fast as your short little legs can carry you, calling for your dad. And when you feel strong arms gripping your waist too tightly, you kick and scream till your throat is raw cause he never picked you up like that, he'd never hurt you, and you want Daddy, where's Daddy? You scream and scream, repeating the question until someone takes your arm and you feel a lot of pain and then nothing at all._

You come out of your thoughts to see that Owen is still speaking, still explaining and so you interrupt him because you know that there is no explanation for this. There is no explanation as to why a watch was worth a life and why you woke up instead of Ryan, even though it was your idea to finish the drugs, _your_ fault. _No one_ could explain babies with no brains and tiny planes crashing into big mountains or whatever new tragedy life had decided to deal you. It didn't matter how or why it happened it just mattered if it happened. And it did.

So you assure Owen that the details don't matter cause they don't, and that it's not a big deal, cause it isn't and you finish scrubbing out and go do post-ops like it's any other day, because it is. Your dad is dead, your best friend is dead, your fiance is dead and so is everyone else and you're used to it so you push the nausea away and lock your mind before you can remember every shitty thing that has happened to you in the past years and how life had been before any of those things happened. You know you can't think of all the pain or all the happiness because if you do, you'll start to drown and you know that this time, you won't have any reason to swim.

* * *

Weeks pass and the cloud of depression that plagues the hospital seems to lift slightly, life going on around you, even without your brother. You don't go to the funeral. Instead, you stay at the hospital, taking out a spinal tumor present in a ten year old. Your sisters take turns calling to yell at you, asking what was wrong with your head that you couldn't be bothered to come to your own brother's funeral. You reply that you had surgery, knowing that you couldn't possibly explain that the only place you weren't thinking was in the OR. You can't tell them that the only relief you feel is cutting and that the need was becoming increasingly more difficult to satisfy so you need to do more, do better to make sure you don't go south. You can't and don't tell them this and they eventually stop calling and go back to being strangers with too many kids that you see once every few years during a holiday.

Your mom still calls, twice everyday, and you try to pick up, but most times you don't. On bad days when you lose a patient or you haven't done enough to fall straight asleep from exhaustion, you use her as a distraction. You know on those days, if you don't keep your mind occupied, you'll do something stupid, much stupider than keeping your mother updated.

You make it a point to talk to Addie, answering as many of her calls as you manage. She's always been good to you and you owe her this much. Besides, you usually only end up speaking of easy things like LA and Henry before one of you is pulled into surgery.

Sheldon and Charlotte call too, but you ignore them each time until the calls stop altogether. You know you're hurting them and that hurts you, but your relationship with them has always been too deep and too real. If you talk to either one, if you say a word, you know they'll immediately call you on the bullshit act you're pulling and unravel the weeks of work you've put into tricking everyone into thinking you're okay. You need to pretend until it becomes true and you know that as soon as you hear one of their voices, you'll shatter, slicing all of those around you and causing more pain, because it's what you've always done best.

So you pile on your work, doing what you can to distract from the mess that your life has become, finding it harder and harder to ignore the cravings you get for anything that will let you forget, even for a short while. You are surrounded by pills and the only way to take your mind off that is the next best high: surgery.

Simple shunts and clipping aneurysms aren't enough to stop your mind from thinking of your ghosts, so you take on harder and harder cases, operating for hours on end. You publish, you study, and you lecture the eager residents, knowing that they hung to every word. You see their minds whirling as they try to keep up with your thoughts, gazing at you as though you could crack any code, solve any puzzle, fix anything that had to do with nerves. And why shouldn't they think that? Now that Derek was gone, you are the best, pure and simple. You know it, they know it, the dozens of doctors around the world sending you scans of mystery cysts and intricate tumors know it too. You're life has become surgery after surgery after surgery, and after a few weeks you feel some semblance of control as you finish yet another lecture describing your most recent success in the OR and the procedure you'd developed in order to avoid damage to the blood vessels.

The illusion of normality you've created in your head soon goes up in flames as you arrive at the house in the woods that night, entering the front door for the first time in days. You look around and immediately realize something's wrong. The house is too quiet, too neat, the living room spotless and the only sound coming from where the fridge stood humming. You walk around, worry taking over your mind. It was well past midnight and Meredith made it a point to only leave the kids in daycare overnight if there was a huge accident and emergency surgery.

"Meredith?" you call, walking through the house. "Zo? Is anyone home?" You continue looking through rooms, finally reaching the largest bedroom at the end of the hall. You walk into Meredith's room, the windows providing a beautiful view of the forest outside. Everything is in place; the bed is made, the carpet is clean, there are no stray clothes on the back of chairs or the floor. You look around, noticing for the first time a note on Mer's pillow. Picking it up, you read the message, your heart sinking as you realize the note is dated from four days ago. You call Alex quickly, then Maggie, and finally Owen, trying desperately to prove yourself wrong; Meredith wasn't gone, she just got pulled into surgery and the kids are still in daycare, not in the back of a car probably halfway across Canada by now. Of course, like everything else, that's wishful thinking and the living room is soon filled with your colleagues debating on whether or not to call the police before Richard finally shuts them up, telling them to give Meredith more time. And you can't help but think that Meredith lost a husband, but you lost a brother and now the rest of your family. Everyone leaves, and you silently transition back to being by yourself. It's easy, so easy, and you're almost surprised by this until you remember that if there is one constant in your life, it's that you always seem to end up alone.

* * *

They don't call. Meredith doesn't text, email, page ... nothing that lets you know where she is, where your brother's kids are. You spiral deeper into the life you've created for yourself: surgery, sleep, surgery, lecture. Most days you forget to eat and your colleagues look at you with concerned eyes and extend invitations to lunches that you just can't bring yourself to accept. You try to dissipate their concerns with humor. You joke about Derek all the time, finding it hilarious that you can use beyond the grave references to speak of your brother. This seems to make people more uncomfortable than anything else, and when Edwards recommends a grief group, you stop joking, knowing that you'll soon be admitted to psych.

Owen signs on for another tour of active duty, dragging Kepner with him, anything to escape the hell hole that is Grey-Sloan Memorial Hospital. He leaves, and he never says goodbye, just drops everything and heads to the desert.

You don't care, _you don't_. Owen isn't yours and won't ever be and you don't give him another thought because you need to focus and the pressure behind your eyes and tightening in your chest just means you need sleep, so that's what you do. But all you seen capable of is staring at the wall in the on-call room. Although you've been awake for nearly two days, your eyes won't shut and your stomach won't stop churning and you're mind just won't slow down and you know that the exterior you've kept all these months is slowly crumbling and it's times like these when everything threatens to deteriorate. You shoot out of bed and head to the coffee cart, knowing that you won't find sleep, not now, but you do need something to keep you upright. Your eyes still burn and your entire body aches, but you push through because you are Amelia Shepherd and nothing gets in your way. Or at least that's what you've convinced yourself of.

You're only case of the day is a procedure on a five year old girl with severe epilepsy. She's had every surgery in the book, but nothing seems to have stopped the seizures. Karev and Arizona are assisting you in a split brain operation, with the hopes that the pathways between the two hemispheres will grow once more, letting the child lead a semi normal life in a few years. It's a surgery you've done a hundred times, and you smile and assure the parents that their daughter will be just fine.

You get into the OR and into that girls brain, everything going smoothly until it isn't. Noises fill the room, alarms and beeping, as out of nowhere, the girl starts hemorrhaging, her B.P plummeting. She loses her pulse before anyone can even process what's happening. Her brain is swelling and you're scrambling to fix it between yells and shocks with the paddles, but you know that even as the girl's pulse returns and her B.P stabilizes, she was without oxygen for too long. Her pupils are blown and non reactive, the worst possible scenario becoming reality; this little baby that had her whole life ahead of her was gone.

You walk out of the OR, calling time of death as you pass Arizona, who just stares at you like she's going to cry. And maybe she does, but you're already out the door and into the scrub room, burning your skin and scrubbing as hard as possible, trying to clean yourself of this stupid surgery, this stupid day, this stupid life. You rub until your skin is raw and your arms turn bright red. And when you walk out of that room, you have only one thought and no matter how hard you try, it doesn't go away. It sticks to you as you walk down the hallway, sticks to you as you head over to Peds, sticks to you as you watch the girl's parents beg and scream, pleading with you to reverse time, trying to make you find a way to save the center of their universe. But you weren't good enough, you know this, you couldn't save their daughter just like you couldn't save your brother and this is your last and only thought as you head into an on-call room, lock the door, and finally sleep.

* * *

After that you are perfect. Or as close to perfect as they come. You don't slip, you don't break, you don't make mistakes when you step into the OR. You study for every possible outcome, anticipate the setbacks of any type of surgery and stop them before they happen. You are, in every sense of the word, a rock star and that may have been why no one notices that when you step back from a surgery, your hands shake like leaves and you squeeze your eyes as tight as they could go, trying to forget all that you've successfully accomplished. Because no matter how many times you save a life, you remember the one that you lost, the most important one. Every patient is Derek and you do the absolute best you can and they wake up, every time. You see joyful reunions and happy endings, parents hug you and spouses offer their most gracious smiles. But you feet nothing but pain, deep and low and constant because sure, these patients all woke up, but your brother never will and there isn't anything you can do to fix that.

It's been about eight months since Meredith left, and it hits you like a ton a bricks as you remember that today is your niece's birthday. Zola's turning five and you gulp hard, remembering the seashell necklace you'd been saving to give her today. The lump in your throat burns and you feel bile rising quickly. White hot fury courses through your body and tears threaten to fall because you're finally thinking of every single betrayal and loss that this life simply won't stop piling on. You hate Meredith and Owen, hate them with everything you have for abandoning you, for leaving. You hate Michelle for refusing to take your help and Ryan for dying. You hate yourself because you did everything wrong and it's your fault they're dead, it's because of you your baby had no brain and it's now your fault that Derek would never see today, the day of his only daughter's fifth birthday and there was nothing that hurt more than this. Waves of grief crash over you, quicker then you could possibly stop them and you know you're on the verge of drowning. You cling desperately to anything that can stop the inner turmoil, so you swallow hard and walk to the nurses station as fast as possible, grabbing a chart on your way.

You're trying to focus but bile keeps rising in your throat and it's getting harder to breathe. You're hands are shaking, you're vision's blurry and everything seems to be white noise until Richard comes over and invites you to get coffee. And when you look up all you can see is that look that you've seen far more than anyone ever should, all worried foreheads and prying eyes, and when he insists he isn't trying to bother you, something snaps and whatever is left of this facade you've carried out these past months vanishes.

All the hate and sadness and disappointment and hurt that's you've ever felt seems to explode all at once, killing you from the inside out. You want to make someone _feel_ it, the raw, exposed vulnerability that eats at you every single day and since Richard is closest, you start with him.

"I do not have time for coffee. I do not have time for meetings." You say it viciously, your jaw clenched, breath coming fast. "My job is not to make you feel better about me, my job is to make my patients feel better."

Richard continues to look at you and you know you shouldn't be yelling, but this has been a long time coming and you are powerless to stop this rage that fills you. And if your being honest, right now you don't want to.

"Do you know what could happen in the hour or two I would be wasting with you? An hour or two matters; they matter to me. They should matter to you, they matter to my patient." Every part of your body is on fire and you don't even breathe before continuing. "If I leave and my patient dies, it is not me who will suffer, it is his mother. His sisters. His friends. His wife. And they will hate me."

This time you do stop, but the words are pouring out and the lump in your throat is made of cement and it doesn't seem to want to go away.

"With everything inside them they will hate me, and you and everyone here because they won't understand why he is gone, why people always leave, why everyone you give a crap about walks away or ripped from your world without warning, without reason, in convenience stores and plane crashes and podunk hospitals with podunk doctors who don't do what they're supposed to do, which is save people!"

Your voice echoes through the halls and you finally become aware of your surroundings, of the numerous nurses, techs, doctors and patients that just witnessed your breakdown. You feel your face get hot, and suddenly the only thing that you want in this world is to hide, to run far and fast and to keep running until somehow this life stops being yours. You look around, wondering how you would ever reverse this mess and your eyes fall upon a tall man wearing camouflage.

He hasn't changed, not really. His face is darker and his hair is shorter but everything else is identical, down to his eyes and the look that you've come to know so well.

You realize that you've come full circle - the both of you - and somehow it's eight months ago and your looking at him in the scrub room of OR two. Nothing's changed except this time you don't feel anger, just pain, and it takes over, constant and relentless. You turn and leave, walking down the hall fast, a hundred pairs of eyes burning holes in your back as you disappear around the corner.

You don't stop until you've run through the hall, up the stairs and to the roof where you feel the wind hit your face and you drop to your knees. You look to the sky, trying hard to remember when your life had stopped making sense. When had everything gone from bad to worse and why you didn't realize it before it was too late? Before there were dead dads and dead friends, dead fiances and dead babies. Before everyone left, before everyone died, you think you were happy, but as you strain to recall these times, you find that you can't. You kneel on the roof for what feels like hours, trying to grasp a memory, any memory that wasn't tainted with misery, wasn't followed by tragedy. But your mind is clouded with exhaustion, and you're feeling everything all at once.

Every crevice in your body is filled with guilt and hurt and most of all pain. You can't breathe, you can't hear, you can't do anything but stand still and absorb everything. You fish your hand around the pocket of your lab coat, taking out the token that represents your greatest accomplishment. Your AA chip gleams in the sun, one thousand days of work for the tiniest piece of metal. You grip it tightly, feeling the indents it leaves on your skin. Drawing your arm back, you throw it over the roof as hard as you can, watching the glint disappear down to the city below. Maybe you can't remember the happy, but you know a damn good way to forget the sad.

* * *

It's cold. This much you know. Only problem is that you can't feel it, not with your heart pounding in your ears, not with hot tears streaking down your face. You pace, back and forth, crossing the deck for you don't know how long. You've always paced, it's how you think and right now, you have to think long and hard for just one reason not to take the small bag hidden in your coat and start snorting the pills it contains. You move back and forth, trying to find some comfort in your rhythm, making yourself dizzy instead. You're tears have dried and you run a hand through your hair, breathing in deep, hoping to find a way through the fog your mind seems to have become.

You hear a noise and turn around, somehow not surprised when you see Owen walking slowly towards you, still in uniform. You stare at him and he stares back before letting out a strangled "Hey."

Walking closer he continues. "It's good to see you."

You want to talk to him. You want to tell him that you feel hopeless and desperate, that the lump in your throat hasn't gone away in eight months and how you never eat anymore because you can't risk throwing up during surgery and you can't remember the last time you didn't feel nauseous. You want him to know how you miss Meredith and the kids, that you miss your dad and you even missed him. You try to say that you can't feel anything but hate now a days and you're tired, so tired and all you want to do is go to bed and never wake up.

But instead you just say, "Hey."

You start pacing again, looking behind you ever so often. You can see Owen talking, but all you hear is gunshots and squeaking and the next time you turn, Owen is heading back down the deck, having probably said goodbye. You don't know what makes you do it but you stop pacing and call after him.

"I have a baggy full of black market Oxy in my pocket and I'm trying to decide whether or not to take it."

He turns and you pull out the bag, holding it between to fingers, before shoving it back and begin to pace once more.

You try to shut up, but your mouth seems to have a mind of it's own and so you keep talking, spilling every bit of sorrow that has ever been thrown at you into your words.

"Got the dead Derek thing completely managed ... I know people were worried. Since he died, everybody's been looking at me, waiting for me to fall apart, freak out or just-", you stop, leaning back and pretend to mimic an explosion, "become a mess. Like some bomb everyone thinks is supposed to go off."

Owen is still there and for the first time you see only surprise on his face so you continue.

"My mother was calling three, four times a day. Addison was calling everyone."

Something is coiled around your heart and squeezing, slowly becoming increasingly tighter. But you have to finish so you say "It makes sense, it's natural."

You can feel your self falling apart. Your mind is no longer there, a black void of despair having replaced it. You know that this may be the end and you want someone, anyone, to know how hilarious your situation is, how unfair. You want to cry, and scream and break everything you can get your hands onto, but you have become too good at pretending, too comfortable with the pain that is your life. You hold on to your act till the very end, or you die trying.

"Every man I have ever loved, has died... including my baby. Thank you universe!"

Your voice is cracking and your eyes are blurry but you push on.

"So I should be Greek tragedy turned to stone bat crap crazy but I'm good. I got this. I am fine. I'm telling you I'm amazing! I am saving lives left and right, I am putting butts in the seats of that OR gallery. I mean people are fighting to hear me lecture! I am entertaining joke joke joke I'm funny I'm fun I'm a party I'm doin- I'm great!"

You stand there, suddenly spent, and you know you've got nothing left to give as you repeat the lie you've told yourself the past eight months.

"I'm handling the dead Derek thing really well."

You are exhausted. You are so tired of fighting off the inevitable, so tired of feeling nothing but constant agony, so fucking tired of all the crap the universe seems determined to keep piling onto your shoulders. You just want to seize to exist; not die, just stop being.

You want to stop talking, you do, but you know this is the end and you want someone to understand, to have at least a little closure once it's done. You continue talking to Owen and you can see how hard it is for him, how much he's hurting, but you need something to distract you a while longer before you slip into the endless black whole that is your drug addiction and never climb out.

"Except today I yelled at Richard, who was only trying to invite me for coffee... and then I went and stole Oxy from this junkie doctor."

"But you haven't taken any."

You find this fact hilarious because you can't for the life of you explain why you still haven't given in to the pull, given in to the wonderful world with no pain that appears after taking a tiny little pill.

"Not yet. But I might," you say, smiling bitterly, "That's the thing. I really actually might."

You think back to your first day of rehab in LA, laying in your bed shivering, thinking bugs where crawling all over you.

You push the memory away saying "I have been sober for 1321 days Owen."

"I was fine. _It was managed_ ," you spit out. "But I might."

You're sure that you terrified Owen to the point of him leaving, but he surprises you and simply stands there before taking a breath.

"All this stuff that you're managing... you're not supposed to be managing it. You're supposed to be feeling it. Grief, loss, pain. It is normal."

"It's not normal," you say, turning around, Owen trailing behind you.

"It is. It is normal. It's not normal to you because you've never done it. You- instead of feeling it, instead of feeling the grief and the pain you shove it all down and you do drugs. Instead of moving through the pain, you run from it!"

He stops, his facing changing suddenly and you know he's realized what he's saying. He sits, dumbfounded at his words.

"Instead of dealing with being hurt and alone and afraid, I, I run from it," Owen says angrily, indicating to his uniform. "I run off and I sign for another tour of active duty." He shakes his head, contemplating a while longer before looking back at you with a new hope, a new fire in his eyes.

"We do these things, we run off and we medicate and we do whatever it takes to cover up and dull the sensation, but it's not normal!"

You stand there, mesmerized by his words, absorbing the meaning behind what he is saying.

"We're supposed to love... and hate, and hurt, and grieve, and break, and... be destroyed. And build ourselves to be destroyed again. That his human. That's humanity!"

His words are filled with so much sorrow and need but also courage and you feel yourself crumbling, giving way to all the loneliness and pain. There is beauty and truth in his words and it hits every nerve in your body, leaving you raw. He's looking at you with a fire in his eyes you've never seen and as he continues, you start to break.

"That's- that's being alive. That's the point. That's the entire point. Don't... don't avoid it. Don't...extinguish it."

You're on the ledge and it hurts so fucking much. All you want to do is forget, to crush this horrible emptiness and desperation that's taking over your mind. You lip quivers, you can't see through your tears and you finally allow yourself to collapse.

"Derek died," you say, voice cracking. "He died. I don't want to feel it. I don't- I don't think I can. I don't think I even want to."

There is nothing but white noise filling your ears and you can't breathe as you try desperately to smother the pain filling your chest and every other part of your body. You are terrified, scared of having everything that has happened consume you. You shake your head violently, trying to clear your mind and you know that you can't do this.

"I can't. I can't. I can't do this. I can't."

He's yelling at you, trying to keep you grounded saying "You have to. If you don't-"

"No, I can't! Shhh - I can't do this!"

"You have- you have to. If you don't, that bag of Oxy's not going to be your last."

You clutch the bag in you hand and look at him, chest heaving. You know he's right. Deep down you know that if you relapse one more time, there's no coming back. You've known this since you found out about your baby, since Ryan died. You held onto that, the inevitability almost comforting. You've been walking the line between life and death on your tiptoes; hell you've been doing doing full gymnastics routines on that line, just daring life to knock you one way or the other. For you, life has never been something to get to comfortable with, you knew that it disappeared in a second better than anyone.

But as you look at Owen and you see all the regret and hope and maybe even some love in his eyes, you know that you don't want to go. You aren't ready for this to be it, for this life full of nothing but misery to be the only thing that you'll be remembered for. You look at him and you feel something new. It isn't hope, not yet, but there is a little acceptance and maybe for now that's enough.

You hand Owen the baggy and the years of grief, and loss and hatred all spill out of you as you crumble to the ground, finally letting yourself come to terms. You scream and cry and Owen is whispering beautiful things to you as you cling to him like your life depends on it. And at this moment, you suppose it does.

* * *

Your life doesn't become perfect, but the animal need to run and hide no longer consumes your world.

Meredith comes home and you push away the resentment and bitterness you feel towards her and instead rediscover your family. You spend your spare time playing with Zola and Bailey, unable to comprehend just how much they've grown. And when you meet Ellis, you feel an immediate bond with the child, something pulling you toward her. She has your eyes, Derek's eyes, and when you look at her you know that you're brother may be dead, but he will never be gone.

The last few months may have been harsh on you, but you remember that you made it worse than it had to be for those from whom you refused help. You end up flying to LA for a week, spending your time at Addison's with Henry and going to the practice ever so often. When he sees you, Sheldon breaks down in tears and hugs you for what feels like hours. After you finally manage to gently pry him off, you face Charlotte, who looks at you as though she is trying to decide whether to hug or kill you. She settles on the former and then proceeds to lecture you about how much distress you've caused everyone. Despite your situation, you smile widely, happy for the familiarity and safety Charlotte has always provided. The end of the week brings a sad goodbye, but you find comfort in knowing that in reality, it was more of a "see you again."

You find yourself leaning on your peers at the hospital, slowly working on regaining your footing. You and Owen are now friends, nothing more, but for now that's the only thing either of you need

After apologizing to him, Richard gets you to agree to a meeting, your first in nearly a year. And that's how you find yourself standing in front of a group of strangers trying to find a way to piece yourself together. You stare at them and contemplate before taking a breath and begin to speak.

"Sixty seven days ago I stood on the roof of the hospital I work at and threw my AA chip off the edge. I then went and bought some pills." You pause and gather your thoughts before continuing. "I've had a hard year. Everything I've ever worked for seemed to have fallen apart within the span of a few months. And that night, the only thing I wanted was to forget and the only way I knew how to was drugs." You look at Richard, who holds your gaze as you say "But I didn't take them. My name is Amelia Shepherd and I have been sober for 1388 days."

Your group claps for you, and you smile softly because you feel okay. Your life isn't perfect, or great or even good, but it is better and right now that's all you need. You're the last one to speak so you lead your colleagues in the prayer that finishes off all the meetings. And this time, you believe the words, and your heart swells with hope because you know that maybe, just maybe, everything would be alright.

 _God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,_

 _The courage to change the things I can,_

 _And the wisdom to know the difference._

 **Ok guys so I suck at dialogue, I'd really appreciate any tips or reviews you guys could give me on this story!**


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